Our Funders

About OLI Funding

The Open Learning Initiative is a grant-funded non-profit. Support from our funders helps us achieve our key goals: support better learning and instruction; share our courses and materials openly and freely; and develop a community of use, research, and development. Although some courses do have small per-student fees to support on-going course maintenance, the vast majority of our funding is generously provided by the institutions below.

“The Hewlett Foundation makes grants to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. Our grantees are working to reduce poverty in the developing world, curb carbon emissions that lead to climate change, and improve education for students in California and elsewhere, among many other valuable goals.”

“Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.”

“‘Creating opportunity for low-income people is a hallmark of our work at The Kresge Foundation,’ says President Rip Rapson. ‘Our programs reflect the inflection points where we think we can actually make a difference in the life trajectories of people who are poor, disadvantaged or underserved in fundamental ways.'”

“Lumina is committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college. In fact, we are the nation’s largest foundation dedicated exclusively to increasing students’ access to and success in postsecondary education. Our mission is defined by Goal 2025–to increase the percentage of Americans who hold high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by 2025.”

“The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 ‘to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…'”

“The Spencer Foundation invests in education research for the purpose of making education better. We believe that cultivating knowledge and new ideas about education will ultimately improve students’ lives and enrich society. The Foundation pursues its mission by awarding research grants and fellowships and by strengthening the connections among education research, policy and practice through its communications and networking activities.”

Quick Fact

OLI open & free courses were accessed by 1.2 million visitors in the past five years.

CURRENT PROJECTS

We have several on-going projects that are seeking collaborators. Some projects focus on research, while others focus on applying research to course design and instruction. Learn more >

OLI OVERVIEW

Higher education is faced with some big, big challenges—from resource issues to compressed teacher/student
interaction times. Watch this video to hear from instructors and OLI’s director, Candace Thille, about what we’re doing to respond to these challenges.

OPENNESS + ANALYTICS

The infinite variety that OERs provide creates challenges for using learning analytics to drive adaptive teaching and learning, support iterative improvement and demonstrate effectiveness. OLI’s John Rinderle and Norman Bier discuss this topic at the Open Education 2011 conference.